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In a move to fund its investment projects and operation, Thailand-based cement producer TPI Polene will be raising THB 6 billion (€154.76/million US$ 182.51 million) through the placement of debentures.
The debentures, to be offered in two tranches, will have a four-year maturity. Coupon rate of the second and first tranches stand at 5.20% and 4.85%, respectively.

The Aditya Birla Group in India has announced plans to expand its production facilities in the state of Gujarat, including cement, viscose staple fibre (VSF), metals and other segments, for INR 200 biullion (€2.71 billion/US$ 3.22 billion).

Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla named the state as the group's preferred destination for investment due to its strong infrastructure.

Dangote Cement of Nigeria is planning to compete with cement producers in Kenya to own limestone mines in Kitui as the town has huge limestone deposits and is near Mui Basin with large coal reserves.

Dangote Cement is planning to build a 5,500tonnes/year plant costing KES 36 billion (€333.28 million/US$ 395.59 million) in Kitui, and politicians in Kitui plan to help the company get government approvals faster.

Meanwhile, ARM Cement intends to build a factory with annual capacity of 8,000tonnes in Kitu

For 2015, Bosowa Group of Indonesia is allocating US$500 million (€421.25 million) for the construction of some cement plants to beef up its output capacity.

Over the following three years, the plants would help Bosowa Group increase its cement output capacity from only 3 million tonnes currently, to 12 million tonnes.

The company's cement plants are being constructed in West Papua's Sorong, Central Java's Rembang, East Java's Banyuwangi, Banten's Ciwandan and South Sulawesi's Maros.

County Cumbria-based Hyundai dealer, Taylor & Braithwaite has sold its biggest excavator to date, the new Hyundai R520LC-9A, to David Bainbridge, managing director of family run civil engineering business DSB, located in Kirkby Stephen, Eden Valley, Cumbria.

The 52 tonne machine is working on one of Cumbria’s most exciting developments, the £12 million (€18 million) Carlisle Airport Stobart air scheme (part of the Stobart Group). Construction of the airport’s new distribution centre has started, with pas

In a report in L'Expansion, Bruno Lafont, the CEO of French cement group Lafarge, claims that while there are certainly cultural differences to overcome in the company’s merger with Swiss group Holcim, the operation will allow the new entity to be a heavyweight player and the global market leader, with turnover of €32 billion (US$ 38 billion) and 130,000 employees.
The merger has forced Lafarge to sell off many of its profitable activities in Europe (notably in Germany, the UK and Romania), but it also has

The Hitachi ZH210LC-5 hybrid excavator has been named the best construction machine at the Potencia Awards in Madrid in the category Earthmoving with Crawler Excavators.

The event is organised by Spanish trade magazine Potencia and publisher TPI, to recognise construction projects and the technology incorporated by manufacturers into their equipment.

The judges of the award included managers from rental companies (Alco Grupo) and related associations (SEOPAN, ASEMAQ, ANAPAT), as well as fleet managers

A pair of researchers at a US university have published research aiming to help uncover new ways to fine-tune the chemistry of materials such as concrete to make them less prone to cracking and more suitable for specific applications.

Rice University, Houston, Texas researchers Rouzbeh Shahsavari and Saroosh Jalilvand’s study is the first to run sophisticated calculations that show how atomic-level forces affect the mechanical properties of a complex particle-based material like concrete.

The research

One of the founding members of US-based aggregate processing and asphalt road building equipment giant Astec industries has died.

Latterly Vice President of National Accounts, Erbie Gail Mize helped create Chattanooga-based Astec in 1972. His responsibilities through the years have also included VP of Engineering for Astec, Executive VP for Astec, over Sales and Marketing for Astec asphalt plants and COO for Astec.

Mize, who died on Tuesday 6 January 2015, attended the University of Tennessee of Chatt

In September, the newly-elected European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker revealed his 27 Commissioners to take office from November 1 2014. Juncker has seven vice-presidents and will be supported by Frans Timmermans (S&D, The Netherlands) as first vice-president and Commissioner in charge of Better Regulation, Inter-institutional Relations, the Rule of Law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

In September, the newly-elected European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker revealed his 27 Commissioners to take office from November 1 2014. Juncker has seven vice-presidents and will be supported by Frans Timmermans (S&D, The Netherlands) as first vice-president and Commissioner in charge of Better Regulation, Inter-institutional Relations, the Rule of Law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Scandinavia’s aggregates industry is gearing up for a period of welcome steady growth, as Jon Masters reports.
Quarry operators and their equipment suppliers can look forward to some good growth numbers in the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Denmark and Norway. There is the caveat of economic warning signs suggesting the region may dip back into recession, but aggregates demand is expected to be maintained. And in all likelihood, orders will increase steadily over the next year or two as growth returns t

Metso CEO Matti Kähkönen talks to Aggregates Business Editor Guy Woodford about Metso’s big plans in China and other key regional markets, and the key principles fuelling the crushing and screening equipment manufacturing giant’s continued success Asia-Pacific will continue to have the biggest world region annual demand for aggregates for the next four to five years. Within this prediction, made by many leading industry research analysts including the US-based Freedonia Group, China is by far the single lar

The Russian aggregates industry is on the verge of a serious crisis due to sanctions imposed by the West following Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine. Eugene Gerden reports. The trade sanctions imposed on Russia are biting hard. The huge nation’s military intervention in Ukraine has already resulted in the West’s ban on the supplies of certain equipment and technologies to Russia from abroad and the restric¬tion on imports of some types of aggregates, crucial for the Russian construction industry.

Terex Washing Sytems has hosted its second open day in the medieval region of Chambellay, France.

Organised and hosted in conjunction with one of TWS’s French distributors, Catecom and its customer, Santrac (celebrating 40 years in business), the event attracted more than 80 guests including TWS dealers, their customers and Santrac’s customers, who had the opportunity to see the Terex Aggwash 60-1 wash plant in operation.

The plant, on the Santrac site, is processing natural sand and gravel following

As I write this column, bauma China 2014 is getting underway at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre. The four-day exhibition promises to beat records set in 2012, with a large number of leading OEMs unveiling new machines. The worldwide importance of what is one of THE key exhibitions for global construction equipment manufacturers is reflected by the continuing high demand for new machine models across the world’s most populated nation.

While the construction equipment market remains tough in Europe, much encouragement can be drawn from the latest CECE (Committee for European Construction Equipment) figures showing a 10.2% increase in sales in the first half of 2014, compared to the same period of last year.

Caterpillar has announced the layoff of around 200 full-time production employees at its East Peoria and Decatur facilities in the United States.

In addition, the heavy construction equipment manufacturing giant will also end the assignments of 40 agency employees.

A Caty spokeswoman said the layoffs are taking place at plants that produce equipment for the mining industry. She said that the industry continues to witness weak market conditions, which means the layoffs will be for an indefinite period.

KPI-JCI and Astec Mobile Screens has hired Stephen Whyte to manage the company’s track-mounted product lines in efforts to further develop the innovation behind its mobile equipment.

Whyte, who previously served as engineering manager for Metso Minerals and product manager and designer for McCloskey International, brings with him 20 years of experience in the construction equipment industry.

For the past three years, Whyte has served as a product management consultant for KPI-JCI and Astec Mobile Scre

W.S. Tyler has named Peter Kilmurray as its vice president of sales.

Kilmurray joined the team midway through 2014 and has been expanding existing business across North America. He supervises seven technical sales representatives in the US and Canada.

Since joining the company, Kilmurray has been visiting customer sites regularly with W.S. Tyler sales representatives to ensure customers are getting the most from their processing equipment.